Zhang smashes second, third world records at shooting World Cup

Zhang opened her day by adding an unbelievable 13 points onto the seven-year-old qualification world record of South Korean Yunri Lee from Beijing 2008 with 592.

China’s world and Paralympic champion Cuiping Zhang set two world records in a row at the IPC Shooting World Cup in Osijek, Croatia, on Saturday (11 July), on her way to gold in R8 (women 50m rifle three positions SH1).

Zhang, who set a new world best on the opening day of competition on Friday (10 July), opened her day by adding an unbelievable 13 points onto the seven-year-old qualification world record of South Korean Yunri Lee from Beijing 2008 with 592.

Then in the medals shoot-out Zhang secured victory with a new finals world record of 458.2, also held by Lee and set in 2013.

Australia’s Natalia Smith (441.0) finished with silver and Great Britain’s Lorraine Lambert (430.0) picked up bronze.

London 2012 bronze medallist Dong Chao (452.6), also from China, won R7 (men’s 50m rifle three positions). The UAEs’ Abdullah Sultan Alaryani (449.6) stepped onto the podium for the second consecutive day and Serbian Laslo Suranji (437.2) was third.

A gold for Slovenia’s Francek Tirsek (212.0) in R4 (mixed 10m air rifle standing SH2) rounded off the rifle events.

Tirsek managed to pull away from Kuwait’s silver medallist Atef Aldousari (210.7) in the third elimination round. Serbian Dragan Ristic (189.4) overcame a challenge from Australian Luke Cane, winning the shoot-off to take the final place on the podium.

However there was some consolation for Cain as his performance helped his team to the gold in the team event with 1878.2, alongside Bradley Mark and Tracey Jackson. The Ukrainian trio of Vasyl Kovalchuk, Vitalii Plakushchyi and Ruslan Korchaka (1867.5) finished second and Great Britain’s Ryan Cockbill, Tim Jeffrey and James Bevis (1866.7) third.

Over on the pistol range, Russia blocked out the podium in P5 (mixed 10m air pistol standard).

Sergey Malyshev (360-7x) led the way, followed by Andriy Lebedinskiy (354-2x). There was a shoot-off for bronze with Natalia Dalekova (350-3x) beating the USA’s Michael Tagliapietra, who nonetheless took an encouraging fourth place.

The Russians added the team gold to their collection with a combined score of 1049-12x. Poland’s group of Szymon Sowinski, Slawomir Okoniewski and Filip Rodzik (980-1x) finished with silver and Austria (954-8x) collected their first medal of the competition with bronze. Lead scorer Hubert Aufschnaiter was joined by Christof Klien and Rene Ramsebner in taking the accolade.

Competition at the 2015 IPC Shooting World Cup continues on Sunday (10 July), until 14 July.

Live results, provided by IPC Shooting’s Targets and Results Provider Sius are available every day.

A livestream is also available at IPC Shooting's website.